City’s homeless discuss housing, policing with officials

A community meeting Thursday that brought together members of Brandon’s homeless population with city and police officials yielded some positive results that will help guide the city going forward, Mayor Jeff Fawcett said.

The meeting focused on housing needs and police and community cadet presence in the downtown area.

“There’s a lot of talk with the province about some housing projects, and there’s a lot of talk about some other things that we’re trying to do. And we just thought, ‘Isn’t it a good idea to actually talk to people that would probably be using services?’” Fawcett said.

“If the provincial and federal governments are going to be contributing money to new housing and things in the city, we want to make sure that they’re going to be utilized.”

About 40 people came to the meeting at the Cultural Resource Centre in the A.R. McDiarmid Civic Complex on Princess Street. While the city didn’t advertise the meeting publicly, it told agencies like Helping Hands and Samaritan House about it so they could tell their clients, Fawcett said.

One of the ideas that came out of the meeting, Fawcett said, was to implement “dry housing,” referring to homes where alcohol and drugs aren’t allowed.

The housing mentioned would mainly be apartments, Fawcett said, with room for storage and green space nearby.

The information gathered will come in handy, he added, as he has a meeting with provincial Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith next week.

It also helps city staff that didn’t know the full picture before, since they usually speak with people who are homeless simply because they had an injury, or a missed a bill payment, the mayor said.

Along with housing, public safety was a topic of discussion at the meeting, Fawcett said.

“We know there is a handful of people that do bad things, and none of them came out,” he said.

The people in attendance “like seeing the cadets,” Fawcett said. “They like seeing the police available and around downtown — they want to see them. It makes them feel safer, makes them feel more secure.”

Brandon Police Service Chief Tyler Bates said there was a lot of “insightful information” learned during the meeting.

“What came out loud and clear … is that the accessibility, the visibility, the presence of our cadets is welcomed.”

Community cadets help the police service prevent crime and enhance public safety in the community. It’s also a visible presence to promote safety and security during regular foot patrols of downtown Brandon, BPS’ website reads.

“They’re a resource that has established a level of trust and engagement with people that that are on the fringes and challenged with homelessness,” Bates said.

Discussions like the ones on Thursday, he said, helps BPS determine what the cadets’ presence downtown looks like.

The cadet program, which was launched in 2023, has seen a lot of growth, Bates said. While the program doesn’t currently operate 24 hours a day, he hopes that could change.

“It would be my desire to see that program continue to grow and evolve and continue to provide the types of supports that they do throughout that whole 24-hour period, as opposed to having the limitations that we have right now.”

» alambert@brandonsun.com